


out of the magician's hat

by jerseydevious (creativityPersonified)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, I'm Sorry, Tumblr Prompts, these. they. they don't. they're not nice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-19 14:30:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3613464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativityPersonified/pseuds/jerseydevious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unrelated ficlets that started as Tumblr prompts!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dot your t's and cross your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> anonymous asked: *slams fist on table* I WANT BIPPER
> 
> ANON
> 
> I LIKE UR ENTHUSIASM

"Shooting Star," Bill sighed, leaning forward with an unsightly grin, "I’m tired of playing this game."

 

_If I get Dipper's body tired enough..._

 

Mabel stuck out her tongue. “Joke’s on you! Tag never ends.”

 

Bill’s eyebrows raised, giving Dipper’s twelve-year-old body a far older air. “It’s… permanent?”

 

Mabel took a step backward, her foot crunching on splintered wood from her ruined set. “… You could say that? But that's weird. The only good permanent thing are permanent markers."

 

Bill grinned, so wide and fast that she could just  _hear_  the muscles in his face pulling, ripping, and contorting to the demon’s puppet strings. “I don't know, Shooting Star, I like _this_!"

 

_Squelch._

 

Mabel tasted blood on her tongue, salty and thick, like she’d just swallowed iron - _and oh god oh god ohgodohgod._  She’s not the one bleeding.

 

She finds her eyes glued open, reliving the horrible, wet  _rip_ , the sight of Dipper’s fingers scrabbling at his eye; the taut ropes that held his eye in place ripping under the force of Bill’s control.

 

Bill cackled, somewhere to her right, and there’s a dull thunk. _Oh my God._ “An offering, kiddo! Eyes make pretty good decorations, y’know, you can hang them up like baubles. What’s that holiday where you decorate pine trees? That’d be perfect!"

 

Mabel gasped, scrabbling backwards; she trips over a broken beam, landing hard on her back. She kicks her feet out in a futile attempt to get away get away _getaway_ -

 

Bill has the audacity to look genuinely puzzled. “I’m keeping him alive, Shooting Star, I never needed the kid dead,” the demon paused. “ _And_  you get to keep the souvenir. What’s the  _deal_?”

 

The tendril of sinew that formerly served the purpose of holding Dipper’s eye in glistens in the multi-colored light, framed by thick, syrupy blood rolling down the left side of his face and staining his white dress shirt. Mabel  _sobbed,_ her heart palpitating, thrumming against her sternum like a base drum. 

 

Bill rolled the eye he hadn’t gouged out. “Give me that book, Shooting Star, and maybe I won’t take a matching set!”

 

Mabel shakes her head furiously, propping the book in her lap and flipping through the pages desperately -  _something something there’s gotta be something_  - in the blank spaces between the turning pages, all she can see is that perfect, round brown eye covered in blood and sinew, casually resting on the ground not three feet from her foot.

 

She wants to run, she wants to scream, but there's something cold and numb in her head and she finds that, regrettably, she can't do anything at all.

 

Bill cackled again, and said, “Someone’s not too chatty! If you won’t talk to me, then maybe I just won’t talk to you!” The demon leans down in an easy fashion, too quick and too balanced to be human, and snags a shining, silver object.

 

_Someone help me,_  she thought.

 

 He takes the scissors in his hand and pulls out Dipper’s tongue, shooting her a wink.

 

"No!" she shouted.

 

By pure luck, Bill actually stopped. “Well, well, well, look who’s still got their tongue! Now do your dear bro-bro a favor, honey. Give me that journal.”

 

_Not Dipper._

 

Mabel shook her head, vision blurred with tears, and threw the journal at him.

 

_Sorry, Dipper. I can't do this._

 

"Hah!" Bill grinned, and lit Dipper’s hands with an azure fire; almost immediately, she could hear the sizzle of skin melting off of muscle and meat. The journal burns into a pile of ashes, as does most of the skin on Dipper’s hands. "Thanks, kid! Did me a real favor. In fact, as a thank you, let me give you a parting gift!"

 

_Slitch._

 

Something soft and gooey lands in her hair, and Mabel screams, and she screams, and  _screams._

 

"Hey! I take offense to that. I deal without a tongue regularly! Part of the whole no-mouth deal, really. I don't even have an eye! But depth perception’s overrated anyway," Bill said. Dipper’s eyes - _eye_ , singular - glowed a fierce, victorious gold for a moment longer, before acquiescing to a tired, pained brown. 

 

The color lingers. It mocks her.

 

Bill’s shadow drifts up and up and up, and he gives her a final, courteous tip of the hat.

 

_Thanks, kid. I really enjoyed that toy you lent me._


	2. ghostly hunting i turn loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked: give me depravity falls or give me (something worse than) death; something bipper related!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i decided to go a little more... eh, subtle with this one

Dipper didn’t realize he was doing it until Mabel asked him, “What screw did Bill pull, bro-bro?”

 

Dipper blinked, and set down his journal. “What?”

 

"You’ve been weird. Weirder than Dipper-weird, which is really super-duber weird. You could be signaling aliens," Mabel replied.

 

Dipper furrowed his brows and leaned forward in his chair. “Like what?”

 

"Seriously? You’re not doing it on purpose?" Mabel said, turning to him with Waddles clutched awkwardly in her grasp. The pig oinked, unappreciative, but Mabel didn’t seem to notice.

 

"Um, doing what, exactly?"

 

Mabel huffed, and dropped Waddles to the floor with a loud thump. The pig trotted away on bouncy hooves. “You’re, like. Showering. And  _showering._  That’s  _news,_ Dip-dot. And then the eating thing? I watched you cut a dorito, bro-bear, that’s not normal.”

 

It wasn't that weird to shower. He'd just felt dirty lately. _Tainted_. Like there was something inside of him that he had to scrub out.

 

Dipper blinked.

 

"And, well, you’re not  _normal_ ,” Mabel said, with a wry grin, “But there’s a level of Dipper-normal. That's weirdness, but _expected_ weirdness. This isn’t Dipper-normal! This is... like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs!”

 

"Uh… " Dipper rubbed the back of his neck, feeling an awkward blush creep up his neck, like spiny, hot fingers trailing along his skin.

 

"And you won’t even let people touch you! Like, you flinched at Wendy. Wendy. _Wendy_. And you’re positutely-positive you’re not doing this on purpose?"

 

_Touch._  The thought makes Dipper’s skin crawl, recalling the feeling of Bill’s strange, ethereal hand sliding his soul out of his body with simple ease. Recalling the feeling of not being able to touch anything, recalling the feeling of his own hands being completely alien to him.

 

Oh. So, maybe he is being a little weird.

 

"I guess that’s weird?" Dipper said, voicing his thoughts.

 

Mabel deadpanned. “Oh, man. We've got a confession! Paging Dr. Waddles!” she shouted, leaping up and bounding to the door.

 

Dipper began to breathe a sigh of relief, but Mabel turns in the doorway and pins him with a look. “I’m coming back with Dr. Waddles, and we’re solving this mystery. Got it?”

 

"Got it," Dipper said, only half listening. His thoughts were preoccupied by the intense knotting of his stomach at the thought of a doctor pressing their hands to his back, his chest, rubbing their fingerprints over his skin and marring his DNA and turning him into a hapless puppet, strung along by the whims of whomever -

 

Weird. Right.  _Weird._

 

Dipper looked down at his hand, stretching it experimentally. He watches the tendons slide and slip beneath summer-tanned and summer-freckled skin, watches the light turn his veins blue, watches his knuckles turn red after tight skin rolls over them, then to a bright white when he clenches his fist.

 

Watches them turn azure with fire, watches them turn red with blood, watches them grip and handle and push without his consent, without his will. He watches them crawl with the urge to do inhuman things.

 

 

Maybe paging Dr. Waddles isn’t such a bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idek if that's depravity falls but still
> 
> y'all know the drill, send your prompts here: http://jerseydevious.tumblr.com/ask


	3. like taking candy from a baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in-a-hat asked: Umm... I don't know... Bill misinterpreting Summerween.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [cracks knuckles]
> 
> visit me when i go to hell guys

“Kid, I’ve been meaning to ask ya’, what’s with the weird skins?”

 

_Seriously?_

 

“Dead serious! Haha. Dead. I’m talking about those weird extra layers you awkward, conspicuous, moving meat-trees put on!” Bill said. He twirled his cane facetiously. 

 

“When did I fall asleep?” Dipper asked, blinking. His eyes took in the broken, bleak world of the dreamscape, where the trees grew faster than the clouds and the stars moved slower than the moon.

 

“What does it matter?” Bill said. In a moment of time Dipper must have missed, Bill disappeared and reappeared behind him, and his dissonant voice made Dipper jump. “Sleep is just an illusion created by the human mind to cope with reality anyway. Just answer the question!”

 

“Man -” Dipper said, before awkwardly breaking off, “… demon, I don’t really know what you mean by 'extra layers.' It kind of sounds like you’re describing the relationship between seals and blubber.”

 

The demon blinked. Inwardly, Dipper felt a small spark of pride; Bill actually looked confused.

 

“The skins of the dead animals you wear. The ones that get eccentric and strange on two days of the year.”

 

Dipper snapped his fingers. “You mean clothes?”

 

“Clothes! Yes!” Bill exclaimed, triumphant. “The strange things you humans don yourselves in! The skinned animals! Why are they so… _abnormal_  today?”

 

Dipper blanched. “They’re not skinned animals!”

 

Bill looked, disbelievingly, down at his own bow tie. “… Yeah, Pine Tree, I think you missed the chapter on governmental conspiracies. This one smells like the skin of a national traitor!”

 

That’s an image he would never, ever get out of his mind.

 

“… Gross.”

 

Bill clutched his bow tie in a scandalized fashion. “Pine Tree!” the demon gasped, perfectly emulating one of Grunkle Stan’s soap operas. “You wound me! Withholding information from me, insulting my trade -”

 

“Woah, woah, woah,” Dipper waved his hands. “What did I not tell you?”

 

“You never answered my question, kid!” Bill’s arm stretched out to punch him on the shoulder. The force of the blow knocked Dipper off of his feet.

 

As he stood up, a thought wriggled its way into Dipper’s mind. It wasn’t a particularly ghastly thought; no, not at all. It was prey worth chasing.

 

“I’ll answer your question -”

 

“Fabulous! Now, why -”

 

“ - for a deal.”

 

Bill blinked again, and Dipper congratulated himself on stumping the Master of the Mind twice in one dream. And then, the demon laughed.

 

And laughed.

 

“Nice try, kid, but I offer the deals!” Bill pretended to wipe a tear from his one, solid white eye.

 

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to know,” Dipper pointed out.

 

The demon’s eye narrowed. “Maybe I’ll ask Shooting Star.”

 

“Maybe you’re curious to see what I’ll ask for.”

 

“… Nobody knows me like you do, Pine Tree! What’s on your mind?”

 

Dipper shrugged. “I dunno, maybe… the journal Grandpa Stan has.”

 

Bill cackled. “Messing with your family, love it! You tell me about the weird skin-fetish humans participate on this night, and I’ll get you that journal. Do we have a deal?”

 

Dipper stuck his hand out almost too eagerly.

 

_That was… too easy_ , Dipper thought, but his hand had already been wreathed in alluring, azure fire.

 

“Now - the stripped skins.”

 

Dipper sighed. This might take a while. “First, they’re not animal skins. And it’s Summerween. People dress up as something they’re not.”

 

Bill’s eye lit up bright, fiery red for an instant, and Dipper felt chills go down his back. “They… wear a new skin?”

 

Dipper nodded.

 

“My turn!” Bill said, eye alight with something otherworldly and very, very dangerous. “I’m feeling a little festive, Pine Tree.”

 

Dipper woke up in a fit. The face staring down at him had a very familiar face, but two very, very unfamiliar eyes.

 

“I’ll get you that journal. You know, after I sew my brand new skin! Geeze, you humans sure know how to party.”

 

_Sew his own skin? Where is he going to get -_

 

Dipper felt deep, watery pain resonate his way, leaching along his forearm.  _Oh my God._

 

Bill - in his body - had made a long, straight cut. “Maybe I’ll cut the fabric, and get Shooting Star to fix it up for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... actually not as bad as i'd thought it'd be. i still need to be hit with a bible.
> 
> alright, coming up soon will be high!dipper (omfG i can't believe i wrote that) and disabled!twins! woo, i'm pumped for that last one. drop your requests here: http://jerseydevious.tumblr.com/ask
> 
> hope y'all liked!

**Author's Note:**

> [sings badly] started at the bottom now we here
> 
> 'aight, if any of you guys liked that, which is probably a negative, feel free to drop an ask right here of some other prompt that might be kicking around in your head; http://jerseydevious.tumblr.com/ask


End file.
